WotC forums down for a week or two?

[gribble]

there is no credible scenario that permits a major company's website to be down for a week or two...

Yep, I'd back this up. The explanations I can see for such a long downtime are intentional malice (which seems unlikely if it was indeed announced ahead of time) or incompetence either on the part of the IT staff or the company management.

May sound harsh, but from a technical/professional perspective there's no reason for such a prolonged production system outage.

 

[avin]

Probably some database crash, all posts lost and IT guys being spanked at basement.

It's fine to me. Hope it means only one login for DDI, forums, help and RPGA.

 

[WotC_Trevor]

Hey guys. These forums additions aren't quite as simple as just plugging in some content and flipping a switch. There are a lot of features being added and some other stuff going on behind the scenes. At this point I'm not really able to talk about it too much, but I hope you'll understand more of why this kind of downtime was required once we get things back up and running.

 

[Henry]

Hey guys. These forums additions aren't quite as simple as just plugging in some content and flipping a switch. There are a lot of features being added and some other stuff going on behind the scenes. At this point I'm not really able to talk about it too much, but I hope you'll understand more of why this kind of downtime was required once we get things back up and running.

Trevor, I do wish you guys luck on the transition. It does kind of beg the question why the work wasn't done on an alternate test environment or series of virtual machines first before rollout, but neither are any of us in a position to second-guess the IT department, either. I hope it goes smoothly!

 

[doctorhook]

I was supplying information, not looking for a response. It's unheard of in the industry (mostly because it's completely unnecessary), and I was letting Scott know that. Given the track record of WotC's technical staff, it's more than likely that they're unaware of a better way to proceed.

Seeing these kinds of shenanigans irks me on a professional level, and when I see them I'll speak out about them.

Why do you assume WotC is stupid? You have absolutely no idea what's going on over at WotC other than what we've all heard, and yet you presume that they have no idea what they're doing. Don't you think that a company as big as WotC, with its large, educated staff, would know how best to serve its own interests? If what they're doing is as easy as you claim, why do you assume they're doing it wrong?

Fact is, all we know is what WotC tells us they're doing, and how long WotC tells us they plan to take to do it. Are you so arrogant as to presume that no matter what they're doing, you could do it better than WotC's staff? If you're not, then why snark at them?

 

[Fifth Element]

Why do you assume WotC is stupid?

That's an industry unto itself these days.

 

[doctorhook]

Hey guys. These forums additions aren't quite as simple as just plugging in some content and flipping a switch. There are a lot of features being added and some other stuff going on behind the scenes. At this point I'm not really able to talk about it too much, but I hope you'll understand more of why this kind of downtime was required once we get things back up and running.

I spend a lot of time -- probably too much -- over on the WotC boards, and I've gotta say, I'm excited to find out what you(r) guys are up to! Keep up the good work!

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

Trevor, I do wish you guys luck on the transition. It does kind of beg the question why the work wasn't done on an alternate test environment or series of virtual machines first before rollout, but neither are any of us in a position to second-guess the IT department, either. I hope it goes smoothly!

Hats off for expressing what I was trying to say in an extremely diplomatic way.

 

[gribble]

Fact is, all we know is what WotC tells us they're doing, and how long WotC tells us they plan to take to do it. Are you so arrogant as to presume that no matter what they're doing, you could do it better than WotC's staff?

Well, first of all, I don't have to presume what they're doing - they've stated that already: they're migrating everything from their existing forums onto a new platform.

Secondly, I'm calling on a lot of experience doing this sort of thing - more than 12 years professional experience - to know that when done right, something like that just doesn't require that amount of downtime.

I've worked on projects with both a much larger scope (as in more than just replacing old forums with new forums that have more features) and scale (as in companies orders of magnitude bigger than WotC), and IME - even if they are doing something new and groundbreaking that will technologically blow us all away - there's no need for the existing forums to be down for a week.

So I can only conclude that either:
1) something has gone wrong with the process (unlikely, given the advance warning); or
2) the project isn't being implemented properly by the IT folks; or
3) the project (and migration process) hasn't been managed properly.

I'm not intending to be "snarky" or overly harsh, and it's not specific to WotC - I'd say the same of any company taking a production system down for a week.

If what they're doing is as easy as you claim, why do you assume they're doing it wrong?

I don't think anyone is saying what they're doing is easy - it isn't - but when done right it shouldn't require this amount of downtime.

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

Why do you assume WotC is stupid? You have absolutely no idea what's going on over at WotC other than what we've all heard, and yet you presume that they have no idea what they're doing. Don't you think that a company as big as WotC, with its large, educated staff, would know how best to serve its own interests? If what they're doing is as easy as you claim, why do you assume they're doing it wrong?

Fact is, all we know is what WotC tells us they're doing, and how long WotC tells us they plan to take to do it. Are you so arrogant as to presume that no matter what they're doing, you could do it better than WotC's staff? If you're not, then why snark at them?

Well, I design and develop enterprise-level web applications for a living. I've lost track of how many deployments I've been a part of over the years, so I'm quite familiar with what can and can't be done as part of an upgrade or new deployment.